• Buildup to the weekend’s football action

• Things to look out for | Follow us | Mail us here

Paris St Germain’s Ligue 1 title hopes suffered a blow with a 3-1 defeat by managerless Rennes at Roazhon Park. Luis Enrique’s side moved back into top spot ahead of Lens last weekend with a 5-0 hammering of Marseille, their seventh success in a row in the league, but they were swiftly brought back down to earth in Brittany.

Mousa Al-Tamari gave Rennes a half-time lead and, although Ousmane Dembele pulled one back straight after Esteban Lepaul had made it two midway through the second half, it was the home side who found another goal through Breel Embolo. It was a dream first outing as interim head coach for Sebastien Tambouret, who was given the reins after Habib Beye was sacked on Monday following a run of four defeats in a row.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Matt West/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Matt West/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Matt West/Shutterstock

US secretary of state warns against idea that everyone is ‘a citizen of the world’

Rubio insists that the US “do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship.”

He says “we do not want allies to rationalise the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.”

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.

We want allies who can defend themselves, so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jews throughout North America are increasingly worried by rising antisemitism. The latest figures from both B’nai B’rith and the Anti-Defamation League reflect a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents, with the ADL audit showing a whopping 900 per cent rise over the past decade. Read More

Members warn NFWI decision has opened up toxic culture that deters younger women from joining

At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership.

Members say more groups are likely to close, and that the federation’s decision has opened up a toxic, traditionalist culture that will deter younger women from joining.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

They’re all over blurbs and social media, but do these bite-size labels lead to formulaic fiction? Plus the classics reimagined for a modern reader

Opposites attract. He falls first. Coffee shop. Forced proximity. Sports romance. University sports romance. Ivy League university sports romance! Best friend’s brother. Brother’s best friend. Slow burn. Age gap. Amnesia. Wounded hero. Single father. Single mother. Language barrier. The bodyguard. Fake dating. Marriage of convenience.

If this list means nothing to you, you’re not a romance reader. Tropes, as these bullet-point ideas have come to be known, have taken over romance. Those who write, market and read romantic fiction use them to pinpoint exactly what to expect before the first page is turned. On Instagram, Amazon and bookshop posters you’ll find covers annotated with arrows and faux-handwritten labels reading “slow-burn” or “home-town boy/new girl in town”. Turn over any romance title and they’ll be there listed in the blurb.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Inès Pagniez/The Guardian

© Illustration: Inès Pagniez/The Guardian

© Illustration: Inès Pagniez/The Guardian

OTTAWA — Weeks after the 2025 federal election, Nick Belanger was on the phone when he started receiving calls from an unknown caller. Read More

• Group C game at Eden Gardens, 9.30am (GMT) start

• Follow us over on Bluesky | And get in touch: email Tim

Morning everyone and Happy Valentine’s! What could be more romantic than England and Scotland, that old pair of exes, bumping into each other in a World Cup? Well, one thing that would be even more romantic is if they were to meet in Kolkata on the very same day that they are also meeting in the Calcutta Cup. And lo, it is coming to pass. It’s so improbable, it’s practically a rom-com already.

For Scotland’s cricketers, who only got their invitation to this party at the last minute, there is, as always, a burning desire to beat the Sassenachs. For the England team, as in all walks of life at all times, there’s a burning desire not to be embarrassed.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images

© Photograph: Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images

© Photograph: Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images

Partners on and off the ice talk about the tensions and joys of competing alongside the ones they love at the Winter Olympics

Every Olympics has its love stories. Usually, they’re all about the quantities of free prophylactics being handed out in the athletes’ village (this year’s edition has an image of the Olympic mascots, the friendly stoats Milo and Tina, on the box). But you have to look a little harder to find the great romances of these Games, which have been on the ice rink in Cortina, where, for the large part of the past week, a trio of married couples were competing against each other in the mixed doubles curling. It is essentially a competitive lovers’ stress test held in front of a live audience.

It’s a peculiarity of the Winter Olympics that there are so many partners partnering with each other in different events. There were two in the ice dancing: the US pair of Madison Chock and Evan Bates won silver and the Italians Marco Fabbri and Charlène Guignard came fourth. Which is all very well. But if you want to see a relationship you can actually relate to, curling was the sport to watch. It’s as if they made an Olympic event out of sharing the front of the car with your partner on a road trip with a map and no satnav.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jennifer Lorenzini/Reuters

© Photograph: Jennifer Lorenzini/Reuters

© Photograph: Jennifer Lorenzini/Reuters

This year-round churn profits shops and content creators, but not the rest of us. Nobody needs ‘autumn oven gloves’

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means you should have spent the last few weeks swapping all of the lamps in your house. If not, you still have a few hours: box up your beige lampshades (or better yet, throw them in the bin) and replace them with ones of red and pink hues. Then – if you want to feel mentally well – you must also change your lightbulbs, because “warm white lighting” is the best way to ensure your crimson decor doesn’t look “too harsh”.

This is according to online lighting company Pooky, which is selling 43 “lust-worthy lamps” (and shades) for Valentine’s Day. A press release the brand sent on behalf of the brand in late January proudly declared that Google searches for “seasonal decor” have increased 70% year-on-year globally, while queries about “Valentine’s decor” have soared 2,584% since the start of 2026. “The beauty of seasonal lighting,” said Pooky’s chief creative officer, “is that it’s easy to rotate. Store one or two Valentine lampshades, a set of rose-tinted bulbs and a handful of candles in a labelled box, and you can transform your home every February in minutes.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ian Francis stock/Alamy

© Photograph: Ian Francis stock/Alamy

© Photograph: Ian Francis stock/Alamy

To a backdrop of inflatable kangaroos, 23-year-old ensured a two-gold haul for her country for first time in 16 years

The kangaroos were bouncing and the sun beamed down. If she squinted a little (a lot) then Josie Baff may have just thought she was in her birthplace of Cooma, New South Wales, when she struck gold at Milano Cortina.

Never mind that the sun was reflecting off the pearly white snow in Livigno and the kangaroos were inflatable, held aloft by fans. The 23-year-old looked right at home as she stormed to victory in the women’s snowboard cross, claiming her first Olympic medal and marking the first time since Vancouver 2010 that Australia had celebrated two gold medals at a single Winter Games.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

• Dutchman joins Lewis Hamilton in criticism of new cars

• Champion Lando Norris says changes are a ‘lot of fun’

Driver disquiet over the new Formula One regulations marked the second pre-season test which concluded in Bahrain this week, with world champions Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen delivering damning verdicts on driving the new cars, while in competitive terms leading contenders Mercedes and Red Bull were entertainingly vehement in each declaring the other as favourite.

Times in testing must be taken with a liberal amount of salt, more so this year as so much time is being put into understanding the new cars and how best to drive them, without yet really pushing toward real performance limits. Nonetheless, across the three days in Bahrain it was Mercedes who finished on top with Kimi Antonelli and George Russell setting the quickest times, from the two Ferraris of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in fifth and sixth for McLaren and Verstappen in seventh for Red Bull.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Joe Portlock/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Portlock/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Portlock/Getty Images

Line handily sums up people’s bewilderment at state of world, but it isn’t quite what the Marxist thinker wrote

At a time when geopolitical certainties of old are crumbling away, it has become the go-to quote to make sense of the current moment in all its seeming senselessness. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” is a line attributed to the former Italian Communist party leader Antonio Gramsci.

Over the last two months alone, it has been quoted – and often mangled – by a rightwing Belgian prime minister, a leftwing British political leader, an Irish central banker and in the title of the most recent BBC Reith lecture, given by the author Rutger Bregman.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

Ritualistic Spurs manager sacking is a marker in the year, but the failing lies with executives responsible for some really vague recruitment

Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t keep returning to Spurs, bloodshot and shivering. Don’t end up twitching on a Manhattan street corner, nodding at Jean-Michel Basquiat as he drifts past, waiting for your Spurs man to appear out of a fire escape, uncork his Spurs pouch, and say what do you need, while you chatter about just wanting to return to the club DNA, whatever that is, nobody knows, but it’s Spurs, and Spurs is your wife and it’s your life and, you know, sources close to sources say a swoop for German wunder-coach Helmut von Wangerburg may actually be at an advanced …

So, Spurs then. It’s true that the media are addicted to this club. But it is also an understandable response to an entity that has become a content machine, perfectly structured to meet the requirements of any moreishly successful streaming drama.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: David Humphries

© Illustration: David Humphries

© Illustration: David Humphries

Dear Abby advises an individual on how to handle one of their friends who is currently disabled and looking for work while being in a toxic home environment, in which he has been kicked out of while dealing with an alcoholic sister refusing to get help.

Brigham Young University said Friday that standout wide receiver Parker Kingston is no longer a student at the Utah private school after he was arrested this week on a first-degree felony rape charge. Kingston, 21, made his initial court appearance Friday in St. George, where prosecutors say a woman who was 20 years old at the time...

In this week’s newsletter: Everyone has to start somewhere … and in front of someone. Thankfully, these soon-to-be-huge artists left the mime act and dodgy covers (mostly) in the past

From the Beatles slogging through mammoth sets for jeering sailors in Hamburg basement bars, to Ed Sheeran playing just about every open mic night in the south of England, even the biggest acts had to start small. So when we asked Guide readers to share their memories of seeing now-massive bands and artists before they were famous, it was inevitable we’d get some great tales. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to devote the main chunk of this week’s Guide to your pre-fame gig recollections. We’ve also asked Guardian music writers – seasoned veterans of seeking out the next big thing – to share a few of their memories. Read on for tales of Kurt Cobain in Yorkshire, Playboi Carti’s set in an east London snooker club and an ill-advised David Bowie mime performance …

***

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

© Photograph: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

© Photograph: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing down

At 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”

Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest. The reckless rebellion the two best friends portrayed was seductive to me, and within weeks of watching the film, I’d met some girls from the co-ed school opposite who were having sex, going to parties and taking drugs. Soon, I was doing it all too.

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian

A family struggled to rebuild their lives after an abusive marriage ended in tragedy and financial ruin

Family life ended for Francesca Onody on a late summer evening in 2022 when her abusive husband doused their cottage with petrol as police arrived to arrest him. She and her children escaped seconds before the building exploded. Her husband Malcolm Baker died in the blaze.

That night, Onody lost her husband, her home, her pets and her possessions.

Continue reading...

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

From Boy, Baby, Reason and Diary to stubbin and rumpy, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 The world’s largest ocean current circles which continent?
2 Who was both the 8th US president and the 8th vice-president?
3 Where did Britain’s first nudist beach open in 1980?
4 What term did Liz Hurley coin for non-celebrities?
5 Stubbin and rumpy are local names for what felines?
6 Who was introduced on The Porter Wagoner Show in September 1967?
7 Which country’s postal service stopped delivering letters in December 2025?
8 What was the only spin-off series from Friends?
What links:
9 Royal Ascot; Open golf; Laver Cup; Olympic heptathlon; Cricket World Cup final (in descending order)?
10 Fleet; Holloway; Marshalsea; Millbank; Newgate?
11 Hirundine bird; Idris Elba DCI; male monarch; Mama Used to Say singer?
12 Boy; Baby; Reason; Diary?
13 1981 and 2005; 1973 and 1992; 1986; 1999?
14 Gulf of Mexico; Denali; US Department of Defense?
15 Septimius Severus; Constantius Chlorus; Dick Turpin; Joseph Rowntree?

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian

© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian

© Illustration: Becky Barnicoat/The Guardian

Agreements reached between Taiwan and Trump administration imply big expansion for world’s biggest chipmaker

Ukraine-Russia war high on the agenda at Munich Security Council; France’s Macron says world must not accept Ukraine defeated. What we know on day 1,452

Continue reading...

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

© Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock

Payments for the $16 billion rail tunnel between New York City and New Jersey had been suspended for more than four months.

© Graham Dickie for The New York Times

“You captured my heart,” reads the first card, which includes an image of deposed dictator Nicolas Maduro being flown out Venezuelan shackled and blindfolded after Operation Absolute Resolve.